While I was contemplating the video I had just watched, an image of Evette at Bertram''s bar popped into my head.
"Hang on you two... You said Evette never used the elevators, but if that''s the case, how the hell did she descend all the way to Bertram''s bar?" I continued, "Ah, Bertram''s bar is where I told everyone how to unlock the core. It''s down on level R-72." I said for Gale''s sake.
Gale rubbed his chin, "Shizue here told me about that, but you raise a good point... She had to get down there somehow. Perhaps she took the scenic route? You can access all levels through other routes, but it''d take a looong time to go from R-4 to R-72 doing that. I suppose it''s possible if she sprinted the entire way while enhanced, however, even then there has to be scanners along the way... Right?" He looked at Shizue as he finished his sentence. In response she merely shrugged and said, "Don''t ask me, aren''t you in a much better position to know that?"
"... Maybe, but even so, I don''t know shit about the back routes. I''ve spent my entire life keeping my brother in check, I haven''t had time for scenic walks between levels. Although, I hear a lot of people prefer to take those routes, so they must have something going for them." He continued, "Oh, but they should be blocked right now? I swear my brother told me long ago that physical barriers appear on all levels during a lockdown. It''s to prevent whoever it is that invaded Arcadia from moving around of course. No point in shutting down the elevators if they can just run into the side routes."
"Is it in the database? How much of the core''s data did you grab, Shizue?"
"All of it. Apologies, that should''ve been an obvious solution, but I''ve been half listening to this conversation while I focus on this. I think I found something... Give me a little bit of time, please."
The screen she was watching was fast forwarding at such a high speed that it just looked like a giant motion blur to me. While she did that I went back to the core''s data files. Over the next couple of hours I was finally able to piece together a lot of the mystery surrounding Caedrus. Far more than I had hoped for, in fact.
<hr>
~The following is a summary of what she read in the data files~
It began when a faction of aliens saw visions of another realm. They called it ''The Realm of Souls'', as they believed that''s where all souls went after they died, but whether they were correct or not, nobody knows.
That by itself would have been fine. If they had merely believed in this other realm, or even worshipped it, nobody would have cared. Unfortunately for the rest of the Federation (A faction that absorbs or destroys all space-bound life - all depending on whether they join the Federation or refuse. With some other stipulations of course), there was a large contingent of people who believed it was their mission in life to open a portal to the Realm of Souls.
Again, by itself, might have been overlooked, but in their research the contingent(known as the Sovereign''s Righteous) not only began to open tiny portals into the Realm of Souls, but they began to create a machine intended to quite literally bring the Realm of Souls into our realm. And as if that wasn''t bad enough by itself, the Sovereign''s forces had completely seized every planet in TRAPPIST-1, making it their base of operations. While doing so they either killed or enslaved anyone who opposed them, which of course lead to the Federation declaring war on them.
As the Federation would come to find out, attacking TRAPPIST-1 was a complete nightmare thanks to all of the planets being tidally locked to one another. The data files didn''t go too deep into detail, but apparently a full on invasion was the only option left for the Federation. Skirmishes, infiltrations, deep space bombardments... Nothing was working.
They had even attempted to blow up the sun several times, but the Sovereign intercepted every attack using methods that were unknown to the Federation, which was an almost non-existent occurrence in their world. It was very difficult to develop something without the rest of the Federation finding out. Going out of your way to hide research on a planet nobody went to was pointless, because someone would always blabber for a larger payout. And even if you used slaves, the slavemasters would end up blabbing to their mistresses or to spies etc.
There was a time when someone had attempted to use AI for research, as they wouldn''t need to worry about anyone blabbing then, but that was a grave mistake. The one thing that is absolutely not tolerated in the Federation, and the main reason they wipe out entire planets time and time again, is Artificial Intelligence. The first and only great universe-wide war was because of AI, and again the data didn''t go into detail, but it said that it was a miracle that the newly minted Federation had managed to snuff it out. Apparently the AI was creating a planet-sized machine, all for the purposes of turning the universe into a lower vacuum state - whatever the hell that means.
Point being, the alien man who built an AI facility for off-world research was forcibly kept alive for half a year as he was tortured endlessly. It wasn''t pretty, but it was necessary in the Federation''s eyes.
Unfortunately for the Federation, the Sovereign''s Righteous were successful. They created the machine and brought over the ''Realm of Souls'' into our universe, just as they intended. And that Realm, was Gaia. However, in doing so, a Demon had used the tiny window given to him to breach into our realm. And as it turns out, the one who gave the dreams of Gaia to the Sovereign, was that very same Demon.
Unlike Eldritch, Demons follow a rather simple principle. Every Eldritch is unique, while unique Demons are almost never born. However, it does happen sometimes, and this Demon was one such case. ''Baal'' was its name. It was one of the only Demons that did not obey Eremnon, nor could it be controlled. So when it broke through to our realm, it made zero efforts to bring over other Demons with it. It could have opened a portal, but to Baal that was a pointless act. In fact, one of its very first acts upon subjugating the Sovereign, was to declare itself a ''Daemon''. A new form of Demon that was going to turn our realm into its own personal realm.
The Federation caught wind of this, of course. How could they not? Gaia was now spreading throughout the universe, and when the machine was turned on the entire milky way galaxy was affected in one way or another.
Apparently Earth is in that same galaxy, but it doesn''t describe what happened there. However, it does explain how Humans and the Shindo''rai (the elongated-headed aliens who were living underneath Veca and seen in the photos with Humans at the training grounds of Caedrus) came to be working together underneath Baal.
You see, when Baal subjugated everyone in TRAPPIST-1, he broke them. They were still functional, but outside of influencing the dreams of soul-creatures through the veil of our realms, this was his first time actually interacting with them, and as a result he poured too much of his being into their souls.
They were still functional... To a degree, but not to where Baal needed them to be. And so, despite his vast interest in creating an AI army (after learning everything the Sovereign was capable of - he was most interested in the power of mass produced AI as a means of subjugating the rest of the universe), the actual result was... Mixed. They were powerful, but the madness behind their creators couldn''t have been more apparent, which was beautiful in a way to Baal, so he wasn''t entirely displeased. It was his first time feeling ecstatic and disappointed at the same time, because there was a glaring issue he needed solved, and these broken people were clearly not going to be able to assist him.
Even if he was a unique Demon. Even if he changed his name and swore to create his own race of ''Daemons''. It would all be for naught if Eremnon sensed him in our realm. For now the all-seeing-eye had not found him thanks to how difficult it was for Eremnon to breach the veil, but it was only a matter of time, especially since Baal''s own people were caught multiple times trying to force captured Federation members to initiate Demonic rituals. One group was moments away from being sacrificed to summon a Satyr into our realm, and if they had succeeded, Baal would have been completely doomed, and he knew it.
It didn''t help that TRAPPIST-1 was quickly becoming a Xerathian hellscape. By forcibly breaking open the veil after the machine was turned on, he left a large gaping hole in the universe that was overflowing with Xerathian corruption. Again, thanks to this, it was only a matter of time before Eremnon found him, so he needed to leave, and soon. However, again, he wasn''t sure what to do with his people. On one hand he needed them. On the other, they were going to be the death of him. Eremnon would not forgive him, unique Demon or not, for not reaching out to him and turning TRAPPIST-1 into a solar system the Demons could fully control and use as a base of operations to invade other solar systems and galaxies.
That''s when he noticed that one part of the Milky Way had been taken over by the Eldritch. He knew they''d find a way here after his stupid people used the machine and broke the Milky Way, but he was still impressed that one of Meizha''thul''s children had been the one to break through. It was a massive ''planet'' that had appeared in such a way that Gaia was literally going straight through it. Baal assumed such an action would either kill or forcibly pull him into Gaia if he attempted the same thing, but the Eldritch planet was fine apparently, so perhaps he would be too if he tried?
Regardless, he found something very interesting as he watched the Eldritch (while making sure his moronic people didn''t summon Demons over to TRAPPIST-1). It was creating miniature versions of itself. Apparently it was settling in for the long haul, and that area was going to be its base of operations.
If Baal planned on staying at TRAPPIST-1 this would have outraged him and he would have immediately went to work at destroying them before they were ready to begin spawning Eldritch Gods. However, the Eldritch were already gathering soul-creatures from all corners of the galaxy to themselves, and this is where he saw his opportunity.
The Eldritch were currently too weak to pose a real threat to him, and where better to hide from Eremnon than next to one of Meizha''thul''s children?
Immediately he killed all of his people, gathered up the machines into himself, and flew over to the Eldritch''s solar system. At most he felt a wary ping from the gigantic planet as he approached, but the planet-sized monstrosity made no move to attack him. Instead, it silently watched him, waiting to see what the Demon was going to do.
As for his part, he had long since decided where he was going to settle in. He had already reached out to one faction of creatures who were currently under constant assault from a portal to the west of their continent. They had initially declined any ''help'' the Demon was offering, as the last time they did that it ended poorly for them, but they were losing against the invading force, and both Baal and the soul-creatures knew that.
And so, he waited. He watched from the sky as more and more of the soul-creatures lands were ravaged from the west. In fact, it was so bad, that the invading force was literally absorbing the atmosphere as they advanced. This action greatly annoyed the Eldritch planet known as ''Mother'', but she didn''t want to intervene just yet. Gathering souls is one of their goals, but allowing her children to grow stronger through conflict is far more important, so she won''t intervene unless absolutely necessary.
Be that as it may, the situation was quickly becoming out of hand. She and the rest of the Eldritch realized that ''letting things play out'' had put them in a rather precarious position. The invaders were made up of two different aliens, and their technology was on a whole other level. The reason they focused on a single moon first and took it over was so they could setup an energy plant that was draining the moon''s lifeforce. And the biggest issue of all was their portals. They didn''t use ether at all, so even if the Eldritch used magic to deplete the area around the portals of ether, it would be pointless, because they were purely technological.
This was a feat unknown even to the Federation, and the rest of their technology wasn''t anything to scoff at either. Their ''power suits'' and weapons were wreaking havoc on the Eldritch and the forces of Caedrus. It was obvious that the only reason Caedrus was slowly losing ground is because the invaders were spreading themselves out - attacking all of the moons and planets at the same time.
Destroying their atmosphere''s was only phase one. The moon they currently dominated was already primed to be destroyed. They were merely waiting until they had captured every single celestial body (Mother included) before they drilled to their cores and detonated them.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
As Baal patiently watched from high above the planet, he was contacted by something unknown even to him. He hadn''t talked to the Eldritch at all, nor did he plan to, but in just this one case he was very curious, so he sent a telepathic package to Mother, asking her if she knew what it was that was reaching out to him from one of her planets. Her reply surprised him in multiple different ways.
''That''s not my spawn, and I don''t know what those creatures are.''
Baal observed the planet for a while and found it was quite different from all of the moons and planets surrounding Mother. For starters, there were ruins everywhere, and on all sides of the planet there were remnants of creatures unknown to him. Whatever happened here, had clearly happened soon after the Sovereign''s machine was turned on, and a winner had long since been declared, which was the creatures of the Abyss currently reaching out to him.
They knew he was planning on using the people of ''Caedrus'', and one of the Gods wanted to help - or so it claimed. Even from a single glance at it, Baal could tell the God was clearly mad, and at this point he was tired of dealing with mad creatures, but after finding out why the God wanted to help he started to wonder if a timed alliance might benefit him.
The God was called ''Atraxu'', and it was interested in the invaders technology. He had already encountered the invaders previously, as they were attacking Veca over and over, much to the Abyss'' annoyance. Only Atraxu and a few other Gods were happy about this, as the amount of sacrifices this war was bringing in far undervalued the amount of losses they were incurring.
But Atraxu didn''t care about that. The invaders technology was amazing, and he wanted it. He needed it. He was a God focused on Mutating, Evolving, Transforming. Always advancing forward through any means necessary, and this was the perfect opportunity for him.
Assuming the Abyss wasn''t destroyed in the process of course, which was quickly becoming a very real possibility. The invaders (known as ''The Velashar'') had hit the Abyss God''s many arms with a weapon that forced him to retreat underground. It was a laser that ramped up in intensity the longer it was fired, and as such, he really had no choice, but that left the Abyss far more vulnerable above ground. They were managing to hold their ground up until then, but now that their God''s support was withdrawn, they were being pushed back more and more every single day.
Baal accepted Atraxu''s offer just as the people of Caedrus accepted his, and thus that''s when he and Atraxu moved to the southern-middle part of Caedrus, taking up residence in an unused fort named ''Fort Deus''. One of the Humans had said that an Eldritch God that was helping them that created the Fort and was residing there, but at some point it disappeared and they never heard from it again.
Baal and Atraxu had an idea as to how it ''disappeared''. They could both feel the tear in the veil, and after some probing they found themselves in a small pocket realm. The Eldritch was alive and well, and surprisingly it couldn''t have cared less about a monstrous Demon and a strange God showing up out of the blue.
It had a very powerful soul morphing ability. Normally it''d be using it to train soul-creatures into ridiculously powerful warriors, but instead it was capturing Humans, Shindo''rai, Xerath, the Velashar - everything it could basically. It was attempting to merge them together into a new unique lifeform, and while success was extremely rare, every success was worth it.
This was Atraxu''s area of expertise as well, so he stayed and assisted the Eldritch. For his part, the Eldritch was more than happy for the assistance after seeing what the weird Abyssal God was capable of. Although it was mostly because Atraxu had the essence of all the Abyssal Gods stored inside of him, which opened up his experiments in ways he could only dream of up to that point.
But before they could hunker down, Atraxu and Baal needed to make sure that Caedrus wasn''t overrun by the Velashar.
Baal released all of his machines and several of the AI factories the Sovereign were using. He had stored those inside of him as well, knowing full well he''d probably need them.
He granted access to the Humans and Shindo''rai, who quickly set them up for mass processing while scattering portions of them to all parts of Caedrus. The Velashar were sending in shock troops all over the place, and the AI they had was only a single prototype that couldn''t handle it all by itself. The AI they were producing was the ''Warrior'' machine. The one that looked like a Human. It was easy to produce - easy to program - and quite good at anything you set it to do, but it had no specialties. Which isn''t exactly something they were looking for, but the bizarre machines Baal had brought with him were shifting the war to the west by more than they had expected.
As a result, the Velashar started launching bombing raids. They were keeping all of their air forces for other harder battles, but after the introduction of Baal''s machines, it seems the Velashar had raised Caedrus'' threat level.
Now Caedrus had no choice but to create a new machine - one that would focus solely on the air, and thus the anti-air machines were created. Although along the way they ended up creating another one as well - a sniper. While it was good for anti-air measures, it proved far more capable at protecting the edges of Caedrus'' territory against shock troops.
While all that was going on, Atraxu was setting up his Xerath. The Abyss were not pleased that he was taking all of his forces to another planet, but there wasn''t anything they could do about it. They were his forces after all.
Atraxu had found a Xerath hive on Veca that was created from a single egg. There was no main hive, which was the first time anyone had ever seen such a thing up to that point. And even more surprising was the fact that these Xerath did not force the soul creatures to obey them. They were purely focused on spreading out everywhere and feeding the hives.
Atraxu destroyed a group of Xerath who were transporting a new egg to another location (to create another hive), and stole the egg for himself. He then placed it down in the Abyss and fed it until the hive was big enough to spawn another hive - and so on and so on.
The Xerath weren''t intelligent by any means, but they weren''t abominably stupid either. These hives knew that Atraxu was raising them, and thus he was their ally (including all Abyssal creatures - as they have similar soul structures).
Also, because the machines and Xerath were primed to attack anything that wasn''t part of Baal or Atraxu''s flock, they had to place little soul markers on everyone''s soul in Caedrus. The people weren''t happy, but their scanners proved that they really were harmless marks, so they put up with it since it was necessary.
Soon after that Baal was able to create a new breed of Demon with the help of the Eldritch (who preferred to remain nameless) and Atraxu. He wasn''t satisfied with just that though, as he went on to make dozens of new Demons (that he now called ''Daemons''), but no matter how many he made, he wasn''t satisfied. Eventually he realized it had nothing to do with how many new breeds he created - he simply needed them to do more. There needed to be something they could do or bring to the table that other Demons couldn''t.
That''s when one of the Shindo''rai running an AI factory of his suggested he make them part machine.
It was an off-hand comment that the Shindo''rai didn''t think much of, but Baal was ecstatic and jumped right on it. He had the scientists test what types of machinery or weapons would work well with each Daemon, and by the end of the year he had a new army of his own. Also, one of the latest Daemon''s he created was a spawner type, which fixed his issue of having a low creation rate. The Eldritch had allowed Baal to corrupt that pocket realm, and as such it was spawning Daemons in relation to its corruptor''s soul, but it was slow. Much slower than they needed for the war. Lucky for him, that was no longer a problem.
And that''s when it hit him. Why only make his creations part machine?
While this was going on, the Eldritch and Atraxu were toiling over their lack of progress. The souls of the soul-creatures just weren''t assimilating properly no matter what they did, which was leading to an extremely high failure rate, and even the success stories while amazing, were still nowhere near what they wanted.
That''s when one of the Eldritch''s spawn brought back a Human who was corrupted by a Xerathian God. As a result, the Human''s soul was bare and easy to manipulate. It was still a failure, but immediately they knew that if they were to succeed in this venture, then it would be far easier using soul-creatures who were under the control of the Xerath.
Atraxu''s Xerath were incapable of doing that for whatever reason, so they chose to create an enclave in the Xerathian realm. Which was much to their dismay quickly destroyed soon after its creation. The Xerath know where everything is inside their corrupted lands, so creating your own lair in their realm just isn''t an option. Even so, kidnapping people one by one through a portal was not an option either. For starters, while the Xerath realm is the only owned domain that''s possible to breach whenever you want, that doesn''t mean you can just leave a portal open. It''s very unstable and requires constant attention - which is something only the Demons and certain Eldritch are capable of doing, and unfortunately for them, none of Baal''s Daemons had such an ability.
So instead of an above-ground enclave, they created small underground caves where they would trap people and experiment on them. Again, mostly failures, but the successes showed that they were on the right track. At one point they had successfully turned a Human into a hybrid of one of Baal''s Daemons and the Abyssal War God (the Lion). After some training, the abomination was sent to Veca to make up for all of the time Atraxu had spent not helping them. Needless to say, the abomination was a force like no other, and quickly became the number two to the War God (although they were still losing regardless).
A long protracted war played out after that, and unfortunately it was clear that the Velashar were gaining more ground with each passing day. Not necessarily on Caedrus, as they were doing a great job of holding them off at that point, but once everything else had fallen, Caedrus was doomed and they knew it. They had a plan to flee, however, there wasn''t much hope of it succeeding.
Even before Baal or the Velashar showed up, the people of Caedrus had been creating a spaceship. All for the purposes of leaving the hellhole known as ''The Milky Way'' behind, and they had finally finished it, but there was a problem. There had been another race who attempted to fly away in a spaceship on a nearby moon, and the Velashar completely obliterated them. The attack and inevitable destruction was seen through their cameras, and so they knew what would happen if they attempted to fly out of there, but they couldn''t let their plans all be for naught.
And they also had something else to worry about now... Baal. He had his Daemons create an array over the entire western front, so that every death was sending the souls to the ''Machine God'' he was creating in Fort Deus'' pocket realm. It was one thing if they had won the war against the Velashar and everyone was on equal footing, but it was clear that even if they won, Baal was going to absorb all of them the moment they won, and there''d be nothing they could do about it. His ''God'' that he planned on assimilating into to hide from Eremnon was already three-quarters finished.
And speaking of that God; despite the fact that it was literally in another realm, its aura was leaking out from Fort Deus, and whatever it was showing up as on the Velashar''s radar systems must have scared them stiff, because Caedrus suddenly became their number one target almost overnight.
As this was happening the Eldritch and Atraxu had just finished setting up a new underground enclave, and it was the one they had the highest hopes for. They found out in their last attempt that using the Abyssal God of Sustenance''s ability to create food that will slowly influence people''s souls was the best possible option, and that''s exactly what they did. There was vegetables and fruit set to grow indefinitely by absorbing the surrounding ether, so even if they couldn''t return for a while, they''d still be ready to go many years later.
Unfortunately for them, the moment they returned to the pocket realm they were met with the sight of a massive battle. The Velashar were flooding into the realm and they had brought their ''God Killer'' with them. That vile laser beam that had forced the God of the Abyss to retreat underground.
For now the machine God was blocking the laser with the support of Baal, but with its ever-increasing-strength, the laser was destined to win in the end.
All of the AI, Xerath, and people of Caedrus in their reverse engineered power suits (that they were calling ''power armor'') were trying to hold off the Velashar, but the Velashar weren''t fucking around. All of their forces were converging on Caedrus, and none of the Eldritch were helping fight them back. The Abyss were out in full force trying to hit them from behind, while the Black God (Necromancer) was assaulting the Velashar''s main base. She had already destroyed their power generators and portals thanks to them being completely unguarded, but the Velashar didn''t seem to care, as they knew that if they eliminated everyone on Caedrus then there was no one left to stand in their way.
The Abyss was beyond hobbled, while the Eldritch were mostly hiding on Mother the past year in an attempt to build up their forces for a counter attack. But despite the fact that this should be their moment to strike, they were instead doing something that puzzled everyone, including the Velashar. The Eldritch were concentrating around a specific point on every single moon and planet.
There was an area full of ether on every celestial body surrounding Mother (Veca excluded), and while it was nice having the extra ether, no one actually knew what the point of those wells were, but seeing that the Eldritch chose this moment of all moments to surround those wells was setting off alarm bells for everyone involved. The Velashar had sacrificed too much for this one last push though, so they couldn''t back off, and as a result, neither could anyone else.
The last data log talked about how Baal and Atraxu managed to push the Velashar out of the pocket realm for a little while, which allowed them a breather to setup a far stronger defensive posture around Fort Deus, and then... It ended.
<hr>
So that''s where the data ends... Thanks to Alicia and Aresa I know exactly what the Eldritch were doing at the wellsprings. They were taking the opportunity to activate the purge, which was actually the correct move in that situation. They took out all of their enemies at the same time, excluding the Abyss but they were already on their last legs and that''s probably why they ended up sealing the underground city. They needed time to recuperate. Although from the looks of things far more happened after that point which lead to the cities inhabitants being turned into poisonous zombies.
I leaned back into the couch and closed my eyes. There were many points that stuck out to me, and I needed time to absorb them.
"All done?" Shizue asked.
I looked to my right and both Gale and Shizue were staring at me.
"For the most part. Are you guys done too?"
Shizue nodded, "Yes. I think I know how Evette was corrupted, and now I need to inform the Clan Head''s so we can respond accordingly. No one is going to like it, but everyone needs a full scan. Everyone."
"And what did you find?" Gale motioned towards the TV, "Anything interesting? I only watched the last transmission on Earth. Haven''t had time to look over everything else."
"Interesting... Hah, that''s one way of putting it." I rested my head against the couch and closed my eyes again, "I''ll try to summarize it, and yeah, you''re definitely going to find this to be ''interesting''."